I suppose it was bound to happen.

As times grow increasingly bleak, there is a tendency to revert to stereotype, and to the most profound, bone-deep, sources of consolation.

And so it was that this note caught my eye:

“Irish consumers are more likely to do without hair conditioner, washing-up liquid and disposable nappies during a recession than their morning fry. Sausages, butter, bread, milk and tea are highly recession proof, according to Nielsen, but hair conditioner and washing-up liquid are particularly vulnerable.”

Which makes all the sense in the world, both the foresworn and the never-to-be-forsaken. And, if one might wonder as to how endless fry-ups can be made compatible with a lack of washing-up liquid, perhaps a thoroughly non-PC reference might be made to the essential difference between shanty and lace curtain irishpersons. Feel free to back-channel me if you aren’t familiar with the slur.

Shanty Fry-up

Eggs
Streaky bacon
Sausages
Tomatoes
Black and/or white pudding
Tinned beans
White toast

Fry. In this order: sausages, bacon, eggs, puddings, tomatoes, preferably all in one large pan. Heat beans.

Lace Curtain Fry-up

All the above.
Mushrooms
Substitute fried soda bread for lowbrow toast
Potatoes: mashed, hashed browns, chips or boxty
Fry.

As we say about Guinness, fry-ups are not just for breakfast. Or for hangovers. Any meal, any time of day or state of mind is immeasurably enhanced by this platonic ideal of consolation.

Whether you take the low road or the high.

A Silk Purse...

For anyone who has been wandering in here of late and perhaps thought they had missed the signposts…

Given current economic, market and emotional conditions, we are indeed taking a detour and comforting ourselves with New Depression-appropriate recipes. Feeding the soul if not the bank account.

Today, being especially trying, I’ve decided to dream of cassoulet. My always favorite dish, my obvious choice for Last Meal before being marched off to the guillotine. Wishing it could, in fact, transport me back to Biarritz and that stall at the end of Les Halles.

Now, in France this could easily be considered Depression food, but not so much elsewhere. In order to make it approachable in straitened circumstances, liberties will have to be taken. In this as in so much else.

Also think of it as a sort of apologia for the last post, as well as a homage to the current Porcine Pandemic.

Cassoulet

2 duck legs [hah!! Chicken legs, or even thighs, will suffice]
4 sausages, preferably Toulouse [preferably the cheapest on offer, add garlic if necessary]
1 3 1/2-pound boneless pork shoulder, trimmed of excess fat, cut into 1- to 1 1/2-inch pieces
6 rashers smoked streaky bacon, cut into half-inch long pieces
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 sticks celery, finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
4 large cloves garlic, finely chopped or crushed
1 generous tbsp tomato purée
1/2 bottle dry white wine
2 330ml cans canellini beans
1 330ml can flageolet beans
2 330ml cans haricot beans [seriously, any sort of white beans in sufficient quantity is just fine, and, by all means, feel free to soak dried beans overnight if so inspired]
500ml good vegetable or chicken stock
about 6 springs fresh thyme
parsley, finely chopped (optional)
olive oil, for frying

Add some olive oil to a large hob-proof casserole or other large pot. Put on a high heat until very hot.
Brown the duck legs, sausages and lamb shanks in the hot pan. Once brown on all sides, remove all the meat and reserve.
Turn down the heat slightly and add the bacon, onions, celery and carrots.
Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until the bacon is cooked and the vegetables softened.
Add the tomato purée, mix well and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
Turn up the heat, add the wine and deglaze the pot well, scraping any brownings from the bottom with a wooden spoon - reduce the liquid by about two thirds.
Reduce the heat to low, add the beans, stock and thyme. Return the browned meats to the pan and then cover.
Cook for an hour and a half, stirring occasionally.
Remove the lid and cook for a further hour or until only a little liquid remains.
Before serving, remove the duck legs and shanks and take the meat off the bone in little chunks. It should be very tender. Return to the pan to warm through. Check the seasoning, add the parsley if desired and serve.

Many recipes call for a breadcrumb topping, swaddled with butter and browned in the oven: precious, but optional.

More Cross-Posting

No, there is no way in hell I’m kidding.

Between our ever deepening New Great Depression and minute-by-minute updates about the Emerging Pandemic, there has never been a better time to revisit this childhood classic.

It has to be the cheapest supper out there [except, of course, for fried bologna, and I have no doubt it shall, at some point, come to that as well]. It can be endlessly retrofitted. It will fill anyone up, and it will transport one back to those mythical days of innocence and ease.

Let’s start with the Sturdy Original, direct from Campbells’ own website:

Mid-Century Tuna Noodle Casserole

1 can (10 3/4 oz.) Campbell's® Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup

1/2 cup milk

1 cup cooked peas

2 tbsp. chopped pimentos 2 cans (about 6 oz. each) tuna, drained and flaked

2 cups hot cooked medium egg noodles

2 tbsp. dry bread crumbs

1 tablespoon butter OR margarine, melted

PREHEAT oven to 400°F.
MIX soup, milk, peas, pimiento, tuna and noodles in 1 1/2-qt. baking dish.
BAKE for 20 min.
STIR . Mix bread crumbs with butter. Sprinkle on top. Bake 5 min. or until hot.

Have some fun if you will:

Save some of the pimientos for mixing up your own sandwich spread [grated process cheese food, mayo and chopped pimientos].
Add some diced onion.
And Real Men and Women eschew the bread crumbs and add a topping of crushed potato chips or…tinned French fried onion rings.

Before you know it, you really will believe you’re sitting at a turquoise formica kitchen table, crickets are merrily chirping outside and dad’s in the den with his Pabst.

Let Them Eat Cake

In the interest of being of some use, I've decided to start crossposting here from my "translation" blog where I've grown bored with whining about outsourcing and the lack of work. Instead I've taken to posting some of my more simple, deeply comforting recipes. Foodstuffs in celebration of the New Depression, in homage to the Last Great one.

One of my favourites from my impoverished university days was Stuffed Cabbage Rolls. Not the fancy ones, though they do lend themselves to infinite variations of ingredient and flavor. They also involve real cooking, several steps and time spent in the kitchen. Just the thing for avoiding the pointless sending out of 200 more letters to translation agencies or the equally pointless obsessive checking of one’s bank balance.

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

1 medium cabbage
1 ½ cups cooked rice
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp. butter [or oil]
1 lb. ground beef [the cheaper and fattier the better]
1 Egg
Salt and Pepper to taste
Herbs and spices as desired [some suggestions: thyme, marjoram, savory, allspice]
1 Garlic clove; minced
1 can (15-oz) tomato sauce
Sour cream

Remove core from cabbage.
Place in a large pot of boiling water to cover and blanch for 5 to 10 minutes until outer leaves are slightly wilted.
Drain, cool and separate leaves, cutting a V-shaped notch in each, removing the thick stems.
Sauté minced onion in 1 tablespoon butter.
Combine the meat, rice, onion, egg, salt, pepper, garlic and spices.
Mix thoroughly.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Place about 3 heaping tablespoons of meat and rice filling on each leaf.
Roll the leaf, tucking sides either inside or under.
Repeat with remaining leaves.
Place the cabbage rolls close together, seam side down, in a baking dish or Dutch oven.
Pour the tomato sauce, diluted with ½ cup water [or chicken broth], over the rolls.
Cover and bake in the oven for 1 1/2 hours. You can uncover for the last 10 or 15 minutes or so in order to help the sauce thicken up, but keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn.

When serving, top each roll with a large dollop of sour cream.

Best served with large quantities of mashed potatoes of the smooth and creamy [NOT “smashed” or lumpy] sort.

Variations: a mixture of pork and beef can be used; a bit of brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce and/or lemon can be added to sauce for a sweet-sour tang

He's in the House

The 44th President of the United States

Mood management.

Much too wired to post for now. I'd rather watch, rejoice and eat chocolate.

I will try to add the odd pic.

The sad news is that it is utterly impossible to steal any other Seal videos, and god knows I've been trying.

Vote.


Early, often and gleefully.

And more to come...

Yes.

We.

Will.

epic win

Just in case you haven't seen this in its entirety.

And, yes, it's totes for real.

5 days...

Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters

I suppose if I had been schooled in a more recent decade, I might have known of this lady and her lucky daughters. Sequestered somewhere in those abhorrent Women’s Studies programs that serve, like similar “special” studies, only to marginalize and caricature.

But, since I adore old school illustrations of flora and fauna almost as much as I do eccentric, transgressive and brilliant ladies, I might have forgiven the arbiters of PC for an earlier introduction.

Born in Germany, 1647, married at 18, two daughters. Left her husband and was divorced by him.

But acute observation is a necessary part of the process in concocting these perfect illustrations. And so she observed. She observed, for example, that unlike common scientific wisdom of her day, butterflies were not, in truth, being spontaneously generated from warm mud.

For real.

And so she observed, depicted and published the glorious life cycles of sundry caterpillars, their predictable and ever glorious metamorphoses. Proving and herself illustrating that beauty and uncommon wisdom are so very often born of happy, careful eye and steady hand.

Point, Not Counterpoint

I have no idea what this might mean, nor do I think I should even be thinking about what it might mean, but it started with Hopping John.

Out of the blue, persistent images of one of my most favorite, but, given current conditions, almost forgotten, dishes. And not the knee-jerk New Years’ Day offering, rather the everyday side, heaped up in the middle of plate, garnished with minimal protein.

And from there the daydreaming went to simple rice and beans of various variant. Mixed with a dollop of sofrito, perhaps, or with sautéed onions and chicken broth, the poor person’s risi e bisi.

But it ended up with asopao, the best comfort food on the face of the earth.

The blossoms are from the same island as the asopao, best enjoyed together, and more than enough to trump the rest of the world.

Summer Fun & the Joys of Explosives

So many reasons to celebrate.

Or at least to fry one’s skin, burgers and brain cells.

The Fourth, of course. Preferably celebrated in the middle of literal nowhere in Nova Scotia with highly illicit pyrotechnics and bootleg rum. Or, even better, Warsaw, where they have raised the fine art of “fireworks” to a level of cannon-firing explosives that would be the envy of many a small, under-funded military.

Sad to say, we missed Dominion Day on the first. Yes, totally old-school here. I mean “Canada Day,” in all its grey bureaucratic pallor, just reinforces so many, mostly justified, cultural stereotypes. And, speaking of ethnic stereotypes and the stupefyingly dull, here is someone’s idea of a list of the 10 “hottest” Canadian men and women. Most of them are, in fact, imports and/or exports, and I would love to hear from anyone who finds any among them even remotely fanciable.

And, for those who think brain cells are can only be fried by alcohol and pharma of whatever sort, you might try this. Despite all common and perceived wisdom, it is not a place I would normally choose to go. Seriously. Christy Brinkley, I hardly know who she is. But then one hears about $3000 a month for porn, a $700,000 payoff to a barely legal “mistress,” waterboarding Billy Joel’s daughter. The joys of that sort of excess, in whatever guise, seem rarely joyful but occasionally just tawdry enough to compel.

The serious, and most relevant, issue, however, is the New Relaxed Summer Dress Code. A directive [“memo”] has gone out to Obama staffers, carefully delineating the rules for proper attire during the long hot days of swelter in DC and Chicago. Reading it, I found myself magically transported back to some of my more merrily transgressive days in high school. Always reaching for that perfect slut yet serious incarnation.

Some things never change.

Boys We Love

An almost ideal summer weekend, with happy notes to spare!

No, seriously.

Spain wins the Euro Cup, por fin, crushing the Hapless Huns and bringing joy to many, many streets. And it was all about the new talent.

Gay Pride day weekend, with parades that would make our own occasionally transgendered boys proud. Our favorite blind [damned if I can remember the currently favoured PC term] governor of color, David Paterson, took literal pride of place, happily marching down Fifth Avenue. The celebratory embodiment of an order he issued last month directing state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside of New York State.

Such a good boy.

Breaking Something

A weekend roundup, wherein we concoct a little mashup of various, mostly irrelevant and horrifying, events, news items and reprobates of any or no stripe.

Mandatory Castrati:

That cute little Punjabi governor of the formerly great state of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, took a short break from "auditioning" with Psychogeezer for the “position” of VP, and what a fun position that augers to be! This week, Bobby announced to an adoring public that he had signed into law a brand-new, never before seen “Chemical Castration Law.” Not just any castration law, but one which moves from the optional to the mandatory and from the chemical to the, mother of god, “physical.”

SB 144…provides that on a first conviction of aggravated rape, forcible
rape, second degree sexual battery, aggravated incest, molestation of a juvenile
when the victim is under the age of 13, or an aggravated crime against nature,
the court may sentence the offender to undergo chemical castration. On a second
conviction of the above listed crimes, the court is required to sentence the
offender to undergo chemical castration.

This bill also provides that a court may instead order a physical
castration instead of the chemical castration.

Karl Rove Also Hearts Barry:

Yes, the slimy little enforcer reveals his most intimate fantasies:

“Even if you never met him, you know this guy,” Rove said, per Christianne
Klein. “He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a
martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments
about everyone who passes by.”

Perfectly etched, but when the hell did they start letting anyone into country clubs other than fat, rich, pasty-faced white guys? Ah, yes, that must be the point. The source of their endless raging, earth scorching, economy plundering and warmongering. They have been waiting for Barry, all these years, waiting for that lean, RatPack-cool presence. And the bastard never shows. Poor Karl. Maybe he’s just, you know, not that into you.

Bubba Cries, Pouts, Flees and is Majorly Disrespected

Poor Bill. In an attempt to balance that always ticklish dilemma of being a serious dick whilst still exuding gravitas, he took refuge in London this week. He couldn’t possibly appear with Hills and Barry or make any statement of support for that uppity little colored person. After all, he’s a former President himself, and much blacker than Barry. He has important places to be and important, world-stage type people with whom to be seen. So there he was, grandly strolling Nelson Mandela’s birthday events, managing to confess to a brit scribe [who are ever so much better than their American counterparts since they have no issue whatsoever with being pushy pricks], that Barry could “kiss his ass” before he lends him any support. Poor Bill. Even Oprah apparently made it clear that she didn’t want to be anywhere near the little scumbag.

The Street

Dita doing casual streetwear. A fitting vision for slipping into weekend.

Of course, that’s casual streetwear in Paris, but it does bring to mind certain nagging cross-cultural observations/peeves. Yes, the obvious: how the variations on that theme seem to reflect other, often less obvious, local currents.

Daywear on the Left Coast, for example, is all about heavy, 80s style makeup, coupled with something atrocious from the neck down. Ensembles that would be less than acceptable at a Lima, Ohio Wal-Mart. Think something in terrycloth dug out of the deepest reaches of your great-aunt’s laundry bin. Or very short cut-offs coupled with a markedly filthy t-shirt and, as fitting homage to the sweltering weather, a fetching pair of shaggy atrocious Uggs.

Dressing up, or “evening” wear, requires the same maquillage, but coyly matched, shoes and purse style, with a Dynasty-era ensemble. Streetlight red dresses [one could never call them frocks] are huge, as is anything in white, especially when combined with innumerable and irrationally positioned studs.

Uniforms reign in Dublin, mostly of the black leather jacket, black jeans and sturdy, yes, black, boots sort. Barcelona moves to very different tunes, especially in the winter. Frocks galore in the warmer months, but then an uncommon amount of tweed. Not the nubby, Irish sort, but subtle, smoother weaves, never competing with backdrop. Biarritz is exactly as one might hope of an ever so slightly time-worn French seaside resort. The ladies, and their presence, catch one’s eye as they should. Discreet, fully informed, perhaps a tad too formal for resort, but then it was winter, and the Millennium to boot, when I was living there.

Warsaw, much more complex, would require an entire brooding post.

So the Left Coast, two decades too late and awash in misplaced narcissism, lassitude and an apparent dearth of full-length mirrors.

Dubliners have much else on their minds, shudder at the thought of being noticed and, most importantly, have to deal on a daily basis with the filthiest of all possible streets.

Barcelona inhabits, as it has forever, that shadowy autonomous space between the Continent and the South. Riven equally by a need to embody artful classicism and to traverse the light transgressive, they have mastered the art of subtle reference.

Biarritz. What the hell. They’re French, Paris is a long Fast Train away and they choose to inhabit other times.

Midweek Madness

Bad, bad, bad girl, with a very good excuse, of course, but I’ll keep it to myself. Especially as there is something so very appealing about being a bad, bad girl.

And since I’ve been so lax, there is an absolute surfeit of riches we need to address. From that very smooth Italian operator, Rafaello, known for his “Vatican connections” [not] and real estate deals, who made the cardinal error of scamming Bubba, along with a thousand others, thus ensuring his recent arrest and hundreds of criminal charges.

Then there is that most devout meth head cum feelthy rich televangelist cum client of blabbermouth gay tricksters, Ted Haggard. The Most Right Reverend has just been graduated from his “restoration program.” This is apparently Christianity’s version of Hollywood “rehab” programs, but instead of pretending to treat addiction issues, they pretend to retrofit sexual preferences, all in service of the loftier goal of reintroducing said celebrities and their formerly tumescent cash flows.

Irrelevant assholes, of course, but, speaking of which, nothing any longer justifies the existence of Grand Wizard Mister Ralph, “Look At Me!” Nader. Irrelevant, check. Still inhabiting fantastic dexadrine-driven, constructs of previous times, places and events, check. Racist cretin, check. Narcissistic publicity whore, check. But today’s events and words have made even the generally unflappable squawk and screech like banty roosters being driven to the assembly line.

An Offering

A small token, a place card as it were, until I'm able to spend more time here.

Snapdragons. One of the first flowers I ever grew, and, like morning glories, cockscombs and bells of ireland, still and always in my gardens.

These, the salmon-coloured tinged with butter, are, unlike most, surprisingly fragrant, jammy and eloquent.

After All These Years

My second favorite Moustaki, but the videos for my favorite were crap.

Sorry for the paucity of posts, but I promise to overcompensate shortly.

PD: Here's his official site in Spanish, if you care. You can also have it in French and German.

A Saturday Night Lagniappe

Daddies Dearest

[NYET wins, thousands cheer, others moan and now, in the second chapter of Lisbon Treaty: WTF?!, all EU countries are saying they don’t have the slightest idea what this means, but they are absolutely certain it means something, and that something is most likely messy and dire.]


My tribute to Daddy’s Day Weekend, as I mentioned in a comment on the post below, was to offer support, solace and easy tips for those not feeling in the mood to celebrate this particular holiday. Perhaps you might have vague, almost catatonic, memories of your own father punching out a sibling in a drunken snit on Christmas morning, downing the tree which crushed all the unopened gifts and sending your mother screaming out the door.

Or perhaps he retired from your life when you were 12, claiming he had just discovered, and owned, the fact that he was a Proud Gay American, only to be outed 2 years later when he was picked up on a morals charges, shacked up with the 16 year old daughter of your mother’s best friend.

Granted, the above are best case scenarios, but even those with truly traumatic experiences can find ways to take comfort, soothe their thoroughly unresolved anger issues and have a pain-free Daddy’s day.

TIP #1: It could have been ever so much worse.

Deep in your heart, assuming you’re over the age of 24 [or, for boys, 30], you know this. But sometimes we all need a little reminder. It could [now bear with me because how the hell does anyone ever know the truth of a man, and he has admitted to at least one encounter of the female kind] have been Gore Vidal. Just imagine life as the despised offspring of one of the most vicious, preening, petulant über-narcissists ever visited on humankind.

TIP#2: Get over it.

If male, locate a straw man. Preferably someone who looks or acts like him, or, if not, who is dumb, weak and/or available. Then vanquish him. Knock him off whatever pedestal on which you/he perceive him to be ensconced. This could be done virtually [just leave a scary number of contemptuous comments on his blog] or physically [best accomplished whilst one or both of you are sporting extremely high blood alcohol levels].

TIP #3: Adopt

Find someone. It might be a gentleman already of your acquaintance, perhaps that charming eccentric down the street or the reckless uncle who let you cadge beers at his flat when you were 11. Or you could hang out in your park, chatting up the elderly chess or bocce players. Once you find your long lost dad, and you will, simply inform him of the blessed event and get on with it. Listen to his stories, all of them. Stand up straight, act like a man and make him proud.

Guess Who?!

And you only win if you guess them both.

[Oh, and you can ignore the young felon wading through the waves, weapon of choice in hand.]

The Lisbon Treaty: WTF?!

Hah!! Seriously. Not.

Although it is true that irishpersons are the only ones who have the god-given [literally, perhaps] right, if not duty [given that only 45% of them did today], to vote on eurotreaties. And if one person in hell can prove to me that he, or more likely she [those unsung thousands of PAs across the far corners of every dusty eurocubicle who actually researched and drafted it], understands a damn thing about it, then serious cheers.

No one understands it, although some have taken passionate position. The Government has tried to strike fear in the hearts of our compatriots by darkly, and vaguely, hinting that all those rivers of euro lucre which we have so taken to our hearts and pocketbooks might slow to a trickle if we misbehave and vote NYET.

But I will say that any NYET which can put Sinn Fein and those creepy Libertas persons in the same bunker does tend to catch one’s attention. And, since the voting is now over, and I freely admit to not having a single, solitary clue or position about the Treaty, let me direct you to this very entertaining corner. If you do read it through, you’ll find that even the author - clearly in deathly fear for his own standing in the NYET community - hastens to add that, despite his outing Libertas’ connections with the US intelligence community and military contractors …is himself voting NYET.

And, as penance for this post [and for a number of related sins], I promise to quickly post something else above.

Madmen

Boys, sex and politics.

The perfect combination of corruption and sleaze, at least in the States, reinforcing way too many easy conclusions. Too obvious, of course, but equally irresistible.

Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones, two former paramours of that former president, have just launched a website where they shall be shilling videos wherein they discuss hopefully lurid details about their encounters with said former. But at just $1.99?! I like the fact that these ladies are finally trying to cash in on their adventures, but what the hell? Why is it that only perhaps 1% of the ladies, almost any of the ladies anywhere, ever figure out how to turn a respectable buck at whatever their profession, or hobbies, of choice?

On the other hand, I suppose it’s time to move on.

John McCain, that man’s man of a man, has an even more despicable history with women. He left his first wife [who was only ever described at the time as a “willowy swimsuit model”] after returning home from Vietnam. It would appear that the horrific car accident she had been in while he was a POW had left her semi-crippled, 5 inches shorter and hardly the stuff of his dreams. He was entitled to much, much more.

So, after numerous flagrant affairs, he discovered Cindy. The quintessential trophy wife: rodeo princess, 15 years his junior and seriously wealthy beer heiress. Out with the old, in with the new, so it goes. After all, it appeared that almost all the Republican hopefuls [as well as many of the Democrats] this year had similar newly minted mid-life Cindy clones.

But what pales in the face of this generally irrelevant gossip, is what lies beneath McCain’s predictable predilections. Most people have long been aware that he’s an angry, out of control, batshit kind of guy, but, for those who hadn’t noticed, we also have this:

“... In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt."”

Ladies. Seriously.

One of those chillingly perfect confluences.

The magnificent star of everyone’s all time favorite film, Showgirls, Gina Gershon. And the Appalachia loving former President and current hillbilly playboy, Bill Clinton.

Gershon rocks the iconic bad girl trailer park ethos like no one ever before has. Just the right amount of dimestore makeup overload, five different shades of highlights, perfectly botoxed lips. The obligatory same-sex scenes, and, frankly, I found Bound quite entertaining, and not just in an ironic, campy way.

Given Bill’s history in amatory matters, one can easily see how Gershon would be his ultimate Venus, the nasty cheerleader-stripper of his dreams. Despite her disclaimers, I very much prefer to believe Vanity Fair on the subject [and the entire article is a deliciously fun read]. Given his access to all the perks that money and his new “high-flying” crowd of frat boy enablers can buy, how could Gershon not have been on his current Must-Do list?

I wonder if, deep in his newly addled heart and impulse control centres, Bill is not more than a bit pleased that he and his “wife” will no longer be under the scrutiny of all press great and small. Despite the always seductive lure of power, I imagine that he would just as soon be devoting his days and nights to pursuing the powerful seduction of his ever expanding Must-Do list.

Match Dot Com

Most of us know that boys - while wonderful, indispensable and inordinately fun to raise hell with - can, just like girls, sometimes astonish with bouts of swinish simplicity.

And two of that sort managed to sneak through my usually firm defense systems this week, and I’m not sure which is more offensive to any number of sensibilities.

The first, languidly lounging/pouting on the left, is a Brit who calls himself Golden, already a clue to his resolute cluelessness. Golden has recently “written” a book about his lifestyle choices, titled – and again revealing the breadth of his intellect and sophistication –Gigolo.

Nothing in this Times’ article rings true. Rich, powerful, purportedly “alpha” females could do ever so much better than this pathetic wanker, and I’m sure they do, without ever having to pay for it. Then there is this:

"There is such a thing as a free lunch, however. Golden goes out with “a group of girls who call upon me for lunch when in dire need”. They are his female equivalent in many ways: models, younger trophy wives, and girls who have a rich patron. “We have a good time together and it doesn’t revolve round sex. Their husbands and boyfriends know I won’t steal them because I couldn’t support them.”

I rather fear that with this paragraph, Mr. Golden, or perhaps his ghostwriter, has let slip either the fiction or the closet. When in dire need of male diversion which “doesn’t revolve round sex,” all girls, everywhere, simply call upon one of their most empathetic and witty gay friends. And Golden has clearly never even been in a room where either of those two qualities has been present.

The other is rather the polar opposite of the above, proudly reveling in his most American excesses and appetites.

Henry T. Nicholas III, a retired dot.com billionaire and creepy geek extraordinaire, is under indictment for the usual sort of sordid financial felonies. Boring? But, of course.

Not boring is what he has been doing with his billions. The first thing that captures one’s attention is the $10 million dollars he spent on building an “underground sex cave” beneath his home which he kept stocked with a bevy of hookers, all on payroll. His penchant for schoolboy pranks such as slipping ecstasy or coke in his colleagues’ drinks. Smoking so much dope on one of his two private planes that the pilot had to don an oxygen mask.

I can only guess that the perv level of all this was remarkably low, at least on a euroscale, the real point being the flamboyant throwing around of multiple billions of dollars on his “vices.” So very American, and so very much in counterpoint to his British counterpart. The former trying to parlay his pedestrian fantasies into a tale of life as a fancy fashion accessory to rich, powerful unreachable women. The latter trying to impress his peeps with his ability to overspend on prostitutes, real estate and last year’s drugs.

Both swine, both faithfully reflecting their cultural values. Given all the above, I think they not only deserve each other, but could most happily ride off in the sunset together, a match made in someone's idea of heaven .

Boy Meets Girl

More femme, yes?

Must be that maternal certainty thing.

The Dublin Women's Mini-Marathon!!

Bank holiday Monday this week, and the boys were out in force, wishing to lend a little cross-gender support to the ladies, the charitable event and their own, ever sterling, reputations.

Oddly enough, the garda seems to be having more fun with the ladies than the ladies themselves. My best guess is that these were probably taken early on in the event, prior to any of their very many scheduled pub stops.

Purple wig, bottom pic, for those who wish to know.

Moves

Well, I had thought I should be writing something about Bobby, but it didn’t seem at all right to be commemorating such an obscenity, in any way at all. The cortege in that previous post spoke well enough, as did he, to other times and places.

Nor do I have the words yet for Obama’s win. That I would never have thought it possible, until I saw his words, watched while he did indeed build his campaign from the ground up. Casually wresting power from K Street flacks and corporate wingmen, under their radar and all across Web 2.0.

It feels generational, but not the way the micro-wonks would believe, it’s not about age or gender or level of education. Or at least not always or mostly. I suppose, at its simple best, it reflects a willingness to suspend one’s cynicism, anger, defeat. To be able to notice that there’s not a whit of opportunism or sham or fear anywhere there.

And, speaking as a girl and notching the level of discourse way, way down, you can also see it, and I always look for it, in how comfortable he is in his bones, his skin. That has always been the money shot for me, the sign and signal, that a gentleman is who he is, knows it and is just fine with it.